The pig sector of Nepal gains new heights

Until recently, the pig sector had been largely overlooked by the government agencies, agricultural institutions and donor agencies as a development tool to improve the living standards of underprivileged farmers. The sector was dominated by subsistence farming and t

he number of commercial farmers was negligible. During the start of the pig programme by Samarth-NMDP in 2012, there were approximately 40 small to medium registered pig farms and the remaining 3,27, 800 pig farms were household level subsistence farms (with less than 2 pigs), feeding on household waste. There were a few government/development sector programmes working on the pig sector but they were limited to piglet distribution and were neither sustainable nor systemic.